


The Span of Absolute Judgment

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-22
Updated: 2003-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1629590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by hua</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Span of Absolute Judgment

**Author's Note:**

> Written for WolfPilot06

 

 

Fittingly, Tatsumi's hands are paper shapes. His breath is the same, warm and dry. The sweat that beads slowly to the surface of Hisoka's skin dries like magic under his breath and touch. It might as well be magic. That's what they're here for. 

Tatsumi is above; Hisoka lays with his hands at his side. Silence is his promise to himself, yet thoughts flip through his mind. The shape over him reminds him of nothing else. It will be over soon, soon. This is not his reward for saving Tsuzuki. It can't possibly work. It can't. 

He is being covered slowly by skin, skin on his skin. He reaches out, not with his hands. 

Tatsumi's shields are deep and still. 

\- 

_Things had more or less settled to routine at the time the chief called him into the office. It had been an ordinary morning for once, enjoyable and short-lived. That was how things were in his job; if you weren't moving forward you were standing still. The newest challenge had been just him and the old man and the proposal, and he still wonders about the significance of that._

_From the silence when he left, he'd had to wonder if everyone knew before he did or whether they were simply silent because of whatever he showed them. Inside his own heart, his emotions overpower those of other people. As always this was a strange and thrilling feel._

_For more than a week he tried to say no. In the library, in his home, at lunch, at work and while working--down in the living world where he should have been paying attention to other things--he fought with himself. He thought carefully of all the reasons it would be absurd, useless, impossible to survive, and somehow all of them seemed more like excuses than anything else. He believed them once and he still believed them in a way...._

_More so than the beginning, Kyoto was on his mind. He couldn't remember his own words exactly to Tsuzuki afterwards, but he knew what he meant to say. But, also at that time... "You can't win with the power of hate," he had been told._

_Everyone sees it, his weakness shining out of him. He can't understand how this will make any difference._

\- 

The sudden gulf of space between them is disorientating. Hisoka opens his eyes. Tatsumi has leant back, his hands between them raised. 

The knife is small, polished, nearly glowing in the dim light, even after it is dark with blood. It draws Hisoka's eye and yet he can't seem to make sense of it, blankness tugging at him. Reality is coming electric jolts now as though his mind is stuttering. For a moment he doesn't know where he is, though he knows he knew and will recall it soon. 

His muscles jerk and Hisoka remembers with the movement that he is trying to hold still. 

Tatsumi is quick, gaze intent as he cuts himself: right hand, hip, the sole of his foot. He is cupping his palm over Hisoka's shoulder, sliding his foot up Hisoka's calf, bent in awkward purpose. He bathes Hisoka as Hisoka watches. 

The blood is dark. The curse lines are bright, angry, real in the colorless room. Tatsumi spreads his hand over them carelessly. He opens a small pouch with his teeth, spilling sand or dust over his bleeding hand and across Hisoka's chest. Hisoka lets his head fall back. Events continue to resolve themselves somehow, as though time is not a necessary element. Tatsumi shifts forward, taking advantage of the long moment of Hisoka's retreat. His fingers trace down Hisoka's arms, the touch making him shiver. 

\- 

_Watari sat perched on a stool amid his alembics and electronics, not much more serious than usual. Hisoka had been too tense to do anything but take it on his feet. Don't explain, he'd wanted to say. Don't tell me how this will make me better._

_But it was too late for that. Every conversation has been this conversation, for longer than Hisoka suspects, probably. As Watari talked the pressure flowed out of him like water from a drain until he felt half-asleep. It was an effort to nod his head where appropriate. He understood, he understood. To the very last point he understood._

_He couldn't do it alone. In this there had to be someone to help him as well, to make up for his weakness. He was fortunate to have more than one volunteer._

_He picked Tatsumi, of course._

\- 

He spreads himself wantonly, limp. There are words like 'doll' no matter how he tries to think of it, but he does his best to make them meaningless, mere descriptions of the act. 

It's more than warm now; the blood is trying to dry but they are both sweating. Tatsumi is working, his hands sliding down Hisoka's calves, skidding over his shoulders. The movements themselves are still controlled, as though he is washing Hisoka in the physical reality of the spell. 

His eyes are too dark in the dim room to see any color in them, but they are definitely looking at Hisoka. Hisoka closes his own eyes in response. His fingers twitch where he forces them to lie curled in a parody of relaxation. Tatsumi's hand touches Hisoka's own for a second. 

It's some time before Hisoka can recognize this as reassurance. 

He screws his eyes shut tighter. In this instance Tatsumi is nothing more than a doll himself. 

Hisoka burns inside and out. Sometimes there is too much light in the narrow room and sometimes there is too little. Seven years, seven years. He is hanging suspended in air and he is crushed under the weight of the earth; he cannot tell if there is too much oxygen or too little. 

There is no specific prick from his curse. How much deeper than the skin it must go to make him feel, so simply, that the entire world is slowly disappearing. 

\- 

_He was as paralyzed by the reality his choice as he had been by the possibility it. Days passed before he knew it, with no more thinking at all._

_He'd talked to Tsuzuki about it at the last, their conversation subdued. Tsuzuki's uncertainty settled him about the matter, somehow. Before, Hisoka had dreamt of a thousand ways for Tsuzuki to be, and until the very moment fear had just been another dire possibility. But this quiet worry only has him anxious for Tsuzuki in return. Still, it's a gift to find the things that should be unbearable aren't always so._

_Hisoka would have talked to Tsuzuki from the window seat as long as his partner might have liked, but Tsuzuki fell more and more silent. He excused himself finally, waving a cheery goodbye. Hisoka watched him go, pressing his fingers hard into his forearms._

_This is as much as I can do._

\- 

A light touch brushes the skin under his eyelids. The weight lifts suddenly, the rustle of bedclothes ringing in his ears. 

"Open your eyes," Tatsumi says. 

\- 

 


End file.
